


Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

by maybemalapert (laconicisms)



Series: A Floating Spar to Men That Sink [5]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: A limit is just like a peanut butter sandwich, Chloe is having none of his shit, Dr. Linda the Long-Suffering, F/M, Inconvenient Interruption by Infernal Imp, Lucifer the Apex Predator, POV Switches, Post 2x03, time jumps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 15:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11233710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laconicisms/pseuds/maybemalapert
Summary: Sometimes it's just two steps forward, one step back. Chloe and Lucifer talk, finally, and Lucifer tries to shoot himself in the foot, metaphorically, but repeatedly.





	Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

**Author's Note:**

> So, Lucifer was being super difficult, and I had to employ the help of Dr. Linda because otherwise we'd probably still be stuck with him circling the couch. Either that or leaving because Chloe would have thrown the box of socks at him by now. She's… unamused.
> 
> Also, he's being kinda creepy and predator-ish at the beginning, so read with caution.
> 
> ♥ to geckoholic
> 
> Title taken from "The Tyger" by William Blake.

"Maybe you should start at the beginning." Linda was going to miss her Friday yoga session anyway, and with Lucifer it was always better to know all that had occurred.

"I hardly see--" her most irritating, and most sexy, patient began, scowling at her from his place on the sofa.

Linda put on a smile. "Humor me, please."

Lucifer pressed his lips together for a moment before sighing. "Very well. I suppose it started on Tuesday..."

\--

The energy was wrong tonight. Chloe could tell as soon as Lucifer stalked into her house like a tiger lashing his tail and showing off his teeth for an adoring and terrified public. It made the hair on her arms stand up. She spared a thought for Trixie, hoping her daughter would stay asleep. Lucifer wouldn't harm either of them physically, but he could be extremely cutting with his words and Trixie wasn't over her ordeal with Malcolm yet. She didn't need to experience Lucifer letting the devil out.

Speaking of the devil, though: "Oh hail, Chloe," he purred, coming closer, and continued with a strong hint of mockery. "I am giving thee glad tidings of a sentence from _me_."

She briefly glanced up from the box of mismatched, single socks she was going through, hoping to find the mates to the two single ones that had come out of the laundry this time.

"I'm too much of an atheist to catch whatever that referred to."

Lucifer clicked his tongue, clearly put out. "The Annunciation."

"One, I'm not a virgin. Two, very funny, Lucifer."

He flashed his teeth and skulked even closer, like a dark shadow. "I thought so."

She sighed, inspecting one of Trixie's socks and frowning at a hole in it. Maybe she should use that one as a cleaning rag. She wasn't really handy with a needle, and the hole was rather big. "I know for a fact that you know how to knock, so why did you decide to B and E?"

He started prowling around, running a finger across the couch cushions, coming to a stop behind her and putting one hand on either side of her.

Yeah, definitely giving off apex predator vibes. Whatever edge he was riding at the moment, she needed to pull him back from it. This was… not normal. 

She picked up another sock, compared it with the two she had in her lap and tossed it onto the reject pile on her left.

"I've come up with a way to make good on my deal with Dad, while allowing Mum to stay on Earth," Lucifer crooned into her ear in an 'aren't I smart?' tone of voice, but it was less 'give me a cookie' and more 'bow down before my brilliance'. 

Her reply was as blase as she could make it. "Sounds good." She wasn't actually sure that it was good -- Lucifer's mother staying on earth -- but she couldn't really argue for her to go to hell because her continued presence made Chloe feel _a little uncomfortable_. Talk about selfish.

She could almost hear his frown. "Considering I made that deal for your life, this should interest you more, Detective."

"I trust you to do what's right, Lucifer," she replied, pausing in her search for the holy sock grail while she spoke. "And I never doubted that you'd keep your word."

Silence from behind her; then he stepped away and came back into her line of sight, looking troubled. She went back to the socks.

"I sentenced her to live as a human. And I really, _really_ enjoyed the look of dismay on her face."

As if that were surprising.

"Ah-hah," Chloe said, finally finding a matching sock and holding it up triumphantly. So maybe she was playing it up; so sue her. It clearly worked to unsettle him, hopefully pulling him out of this mood.

"I love punishing people," he emphasized, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Okay." She put the matched pair into her lap and went through the remainders of the box. Not all that many left and it didn't look like she'd find the mate to the other, but hope springs eternal. Plus, she could keep ignoring Lucifer this way.

"I'm _good_ at it. I'm the _devil_." Clenched jaw, and an undertone of frustration. Should she spare him some more attention, so he wouldn't explode? Or would it be better to make him lose his cool and maybe get him back to normal afterwards?

"I've been successfully and _happily_ punishing people for eons. And I love doing it in _any_ setting. Love the power. Love seeing the knowledge fill their eyes that they are at my mercy."

Not the right moment to change her tack, she thought, pulling out the final sock -- different color entirely -- and throwing it back into the box. "Mhm."

" _Detective._ "

He really wasn't used to people ignoring him.

"Yes?" She began gathering up the other mismatched socks, then picked up the box and stood up to put it away, stepping around Lucifer as if he were just part of the scenery. It seemed to be the final straw.

"Why are you _different_?" he finally burst out, voice raised and getting louder with every word. Chloe winced inwardly, hoping he wouldn't wake Trixie. "Why do none of the rules ever apply to _you? Why?_ " 

Chloe put the box back on the couch and finally looked at him. He was staring at her as if she held all the answers and was simply refusing to give them to him. The image of Malcolm falling, dying from her bullets, flashed through her mind suddenly.

Shit.

_Does he mean he doesn't want to punish me, but that he… needs to?_

"You're talking about punishing me," she said slowly. "As in, in hell?"

"What? No! I--" He pinched his nose and hissed through his teeth. "That's not what I meant. Leaving aside that you are a disgustingly moral person who would never do anything to deserve it, the thought of… of _doing that_ is anathema to me."

He started pacing in front of the couch, muttering to himself, a whirlwind of barely controlled emotion. She sat back down and watched him, trying not to think about the laughable idea that she was in an icon of moral righteousness. Sure, she tried to be a good person, but she'd killed someone and didn't regret it. 

Also, she was pretty sure anger was one of the seven deadly sins and she had that in spades. 

And Lucifer had been right, too, about how good getting revenge on Dan felt to her. She was certainly vindictive, under the right circumstances.

On the other hand, if anyone would know where she was headed after death, it would be the devil, wouldn't it? And he'd seen her shoot Malcolm… 

_But that was self defense._ And on the heels of that thought came another: _Isn't repentance important, though?_

Maybe she should… talk to a priest. Or Ella. Ella would probably know. She made a mental note to squeeze in some time to talk to the woman tomorrow or on Thursday, at the latest. She wouldn't be able to properly rest otherwise.

\--

"She was afraid of me. At first. And then, angry."

 _Patient repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, surprised it actually works,_ was not something she could write down in a patient file, but hoo-boy did she want to. She set pen to paper, unsurprised when Lucifer bent forward to read it. He was one of those patients who wanted to know what she wrote about them. There were others who never did.

"'Attempt at self-sabotage'?" Lucifer read, incredulous. "Why would I do something as stupid as that?"

"There are different reasons for why someone self-sabotages. It could be they genuinely don't want something, or they could be afraid--" Lucifer scoffed. "--or they might think they don't deserve what they're getting or they think it won't keep, so it's better to end things on their own terms, or--"

He raised a hand and cut her off. "None of this applies to me." He paused. "Ergo, I do not self-sabotage."

Linda folded her hands. "What were you doing then?"

"Taking back control. As you said I should." Some days she really couldn't tell if he had selective hearing or if he was being deliberately obtuse.

"I did not say that." She'd been trying to tell him to examine _why_ he felt the need to stay in control all the time. Why letting Chloe take over had him running scared afterwards. Not that he'd admitted to that, but she could read between the lines.

"You--"

"No. You interpreted what I said to mean that, and then you left." As he tended to do. Patients sometimes did run out on her, particularly when they were upset, but Lucifer really took it to extremes. 

"Well, perhaps you should be clearer then. However, even if you didn't mean it, everything turned out well that night."

\--

Lucifer finally stopped pacing and stood in front of her again, so that she had to crane her neck -- and bare her throat -- to look him in the eye. Chloe shoved all thoughts about the final destination of her soul aside and focused on the more immediate problem. Compartmentalization was everything, and she had had more than enough practice with it.

"Either sit down or stand further back, you're giving me a crick in the neck." She said it firmly, and he'd already taken a half step back before a frown crossed his face. 

"This is exactly what I meant," he muttered, but did back up more, finally leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. "I don't… 'relinquish control'," he said and Chloe could clearly hear the mental quotation marks he put around the last two words. She thought back to what he'd told her, about having experience subbing, and then she thought about how he could influence everyone but her if he wished to, how he was immortal and invulnerable except around her, and the feeling of invincibility that would give him, _except around her_ , and…

He'd never actually settled into the right headspace before… before that day five weeks ago.

 _And I put him there,_ she thought with some relish. _Me._ And right on the heels of that thought came another: that he'd come here tonight to take back control. She should have expected it, really. She'd known that Lucifer was a control freak. 

_Still doesn't give him the right to prowl around. All 'Oooh, I'm the big, bad devil. Fear me.'_

Chloe wasn't afraid, no. She was… irritated. "How did you see this evening going, exactly?" she asked, voice low and tight.

"Well," he said, his eyes darting away from hers and then back. "I do have quite a formidable amount of experience topping, and unless I misinterpreted your reaction the other day you aren't entirely averse to handing over the reigns, so to speak."

Chloe shut her eyes and counted to ten. Well -- it _was_ true that she liked to switch and those times when Lucifer's hands closed around her wrist had done _things_ to her. He wasn't wrong about that.

Still. 

_I'm not ready for that. Not for the foreseeable future anyway,_ she thought. _And even then, not long term. Just sometimes maybe, for fun._

And, also, far more importantly -- and she couldn't believe she had to tell him this; he was usually so respectful of what she wanted, had been… for a good while now, she realized -- 

"Just because I _reacted_ ," she said, opening her eyes and catching his gaze, making sure she had his full attention, "doesn't mean I _want to_." 

He stared at her, mouth opening and closing, before he squeezed his eyes shut with a grimace. "No, I know. I didn't mean to… My apologies, Detective, I shouldn't have assumed."

She took a deep breath, let it out. "Okay."

"Right. So, I'll just…" He pointed at himself, then at the door, looking as awkward as she'd ever seen him. 

If she let him leave now, he'd go on ignoring that they _needed to talk_ and she was done with letting that happen. Time to be a bit more underhanded.

"There's a way you could make it up to me, actually."

He frowned. "Make it up--?"

"Unless that apology was just for show?" She knew it hadn't been but let doubt creep into her voice. Yeah, definitely underhanded.

"No, uh." Lucifer shook his head, still looking a little lost, before he apparently had a lightbulb moment and a change stole over his body. He stood straighter, looking more confident. He wasn't quite smirking yet, but definitely getting there. "What is it that you desire, Detective?"

Ah, of course. He thought he was back on the familiar grounds of deals and bargains. Well, in a sense he was. It just wasn't the kind of bargain he was used to, she didn't think.

She folded her hands. "You owe me a talk. And I want you to stop evading."

"Ah," he said, licking his lips.

"That means no half-truths, either." 

He winced hard. "Are you sure I can't convince you of another form of payment? I could--"

"No," she said firmly. "A talk, Lucifer. About the problem you have with 'relinquishing control', why you really chose to come here tonight, and--" _Might as well go for broke._ "--the limit that you don't seem to want to acknowledge."

For a moment, he stared at her, mutinous. She tried to seem calm, but she could feel her shoulders tighten. Lucifer looked just as tense as she felt.

Then suddenly, as if his strings had been cut, he deflated. "Very well," he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling and sounding decidedly long-suffering. "But I need a drink, first."

\--

"Well, at first, it did look like it might have backfired. However, -- and you'll be pleased to learn this, _Doctor_ \-- we talked. I even mentioned my…" He made some kind of circling motion with his hands, clearly agitated. "...feelings." Ah, that would explain the agitation. It was also a really big step for him to open up to someone else like this.

"That's great, Lucifer," she said.

He huffed. "A bloody pain in the arse is what it was," and continued just barely loud enough for her to hear, "An actual pain in the arse would have been more welcome."

"But rewarding in the end?"

He shrugged and started picking at the arm of the sofa. She waited, but it didn't take long for him to heave a sigh and lift his eyes to glare at her. "Very well. You were right. Talking about my feelings with her did help, yada, yada. That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?"

"It's not about me," she replied, though the validation certainly did feel very satisfying. It was also good to know he had heard something beside 'take back control', which she definitely hadn't said. 

He threw her a look, lips quirked, as if he had heard her thoughts. "Regardless, it isn't doing me any good _now_."

\--

Chloe ended up raiding her mother's liquor cabinet. It wasn't that she didn't drink, per se, but she never bothered buying booze to store at home. Mostly, if she ended up imbibing, she did so in bars or by stealing from Dan's stash of beer in the fridge. No Dan here -- not that Lucifer seemed like the type to slug down Blue Ribbon -- but her mother definitely kept some alcohol around that was at least mid-range in price.

"Okay, then," she said as they were both seated on the couch and nursing a glass of whiskey. Might as well start by making him think about what he'd actually been trying to accomplish. "Why did you decide to come here?"

"I told you. I was--"

"Lucifer."

He shut up immediately and glared -- no, _sulked_ \-- at her, before downing the contents of his glass in one gulp. "I'm the devil, Detective."

"I know."

"Do you? Do you understand what I have been doing almost since the beginning of mankind's creation?"

"Punishing people," she replied promptly. As he'd told her just a few minutes ago.

He raised his hand as if to interrupt her, though she hadn't been planning to say anything else. "Providing a place for them to punish themselves mostly, but yes."

He began playing with the glass, turning it round and round in his hand. "Mum… insinuated that I was working with the police because I was trying to please _dad_."

 _Oh for fuck's sake._ Chloe was starting to really dislike the goddess. But it did explain why he'd abandoned the case, only to come back later and question their suspect on his motivation. _Why do you punish_ , indeed.

"You were trying to figure out if that was true, when you asked our perp about his motives."

"No. I knew it wasn't true. The day I do something for the sake of pleasing dear old dad you can just send me into the loony bin for I will have _lost my mind_." He tried to take a sip from his glass, only to discover it empty. Chloe reached for the bottle on her left and handed it to him, waving when he tried to hand it back to her after refilling his glass. He'd probably end up drinking most of it anyway. The bottle made a clinking sound as he put it on the floor. "Of course, the question of why did remain, but I have come upon an answer."

"You enjoy it."

He flashed her a grin. "Exactly."

"And when you came here…" she prompted.

"I was… trying to discover if… No. I was...." He huffed out a sigh. "I was trying to prove that you…" he trailed off again, looking constipated. She decided to help him or, well, test if her theory was correct.

"You were riding the high you'd gotten from punishing your mother. So, you came here, trying to take back control because me topping you doesn't jive with the image you have of yourself."

"Well, if you already know then why did you ask," he grumbled at her.

"Because I wanted to make sure that _you_ knew why you were doing it."

"You sound like Linda."

Her lips twitched. "I vaguely remember you telling me how great a therapist she is, so I'll take that as a compliment." 

He huffed.

"Look, this is why I wanted to talk to you after our scene." She leaned back on the couch, pulling her feet up and resting the glass on her left knee. She hadn't really been in the mood for a drink, but letting Lucifer drink alone seemed awkward. "To make sure that--" _you were okay_. If she said that, he'd close up again. "-- things were okay between us."

"They were!"

She kept silent, waiting.

"Fine. Fine. I may have felt… out of sorts." He started working his jaw, grinding his teeth together so hard it almost looked like he was trying to chew through them. "I'm the _devil_. My very name inspires fear, and _no one_ thinks that I'm good. No one is _proud of the devil_."

"Lucifer. That's not--"

"And you didn't know who I am!" he interrupted. "Your words… you didn't say them to _me_. I knew that, and yet."

\--

"And yet, you wanted her to mean them," Linda said.

He turned his head from her, lips pressed tight, and nodded. 

"She said she did," he said finally.

\--

"Lucifer," Chloe breathed, her heart aching. "I think you're a good person. And I know who you are now, and I still think that." Leaning towards him, she touched his arm. "And if I had known then, I still would have said _everything_ I said to you."

He shook his head but didn't pull back from her. Then he chuckled, shook his head again, and finally looked at her, gaze soft and wondering. Her breath caught in her throat. That was… that was definitely not lust or, or _friendship_. 

Chloe's heart skipped a beat, then started to thunder in her ears. She tried to tell herself to calm down, that this didn't mean her own fledgling feelings -- buried as deep as they were -- were returned. Well, no. They were clearly being returned, but--

"Mom?" Chloe jumped, snatching her hand back from Lucifer's arm, and twisted to see Trixie coming out of her room, tear tracks on her cheeks. 

\--

"And then that infernal creature that calls herself child interrupted."

That was quite unfortunate. She hoped that Chloe's words had sunk in regardless. He really needed to internalize them. "So you didn't manage to talk about anything else?"

"No, we did," he replied, waving a hand, "but only after Beatrice went back to sleep. The Detective refused to discuss matters further while her offspring was listening."

\--

"In any case, you didn't cross any limits that day, Chloe."

She turned away from the microwave where she was warming some milk for Trixie who was standing next to her and staring at Lucifer as if he were going to vanish if she so much as blinked. "You're sure?"

"Quite." He grinned at her. "In fact, you're welcome to heap on the accolades whenever you feel like it, Detective."

Well, that was… reassuring. And definitely worth pursuing at a later date.

"What's a limit?"

Shit. Chloe quickly pushed down any thoughts of pushing her partner to the edge and reminded herself that Trixie was in the room and shouldn't be listening to that kind of conversation in the first place, dammit.

First hookers, now limits. It wasn't that Chloe felt these were bad things. It was just that Trixie had no filter and was absolutely going mention them at the least appropriate moment -- like at school.

_Kind of like someone else I know._

The microwave dinged, bringing Chloe back to the present and the fact that she still had to give her daughter a short lesson in kink 101.

"A limit is when you really, really don't want someone to do or say something to you, monkey." 

"So, it's something bad?" Trixie asked, briefly looking away from Lucifer to frown at Chloe.

"No, not bad as such. Do you remember the kid last year who was really, really allergic to peanuts?"

"Caden?"

Right, that was his name. "Yes. And you remember that no one was allowed to bring peanuts with them to class?"

Trixie nodded.

"Crossing a limit would be like handing him a peanut butter sandwich. Peanut butter sandwiches aren't bad themselves, they're--"

"-- just bad for him."

"Yes, exactly." She handed Trixie the glass of milk. "Why don't you head back to bed? I'll be there in a moment."

She needed to tell Lucifer that the discussion was tabled until Trixie was back asleep.

Hesitantly, her daughter looked first at her, then back at Lucifer. "Is Lucifer coming, too?"

\--

"Have you ever seen that show about the time-travelling alien in his flying box?"

Linda shook her head, wondering at where the question was coming from or what it was even about. "I can't say that I have."

"There is this episode where angel statues come to life and kill you when you're not looking."

"Okay." She nodded, still not entirely sure where he was going with this. She made a note to look up the reference later if it proved important.

Lucifer's face was the picture of distress. "I would swear the child was looking at me just like that."

\--

"Is this a frequent occurrence? The... staring." Lucifer's voice was a low rumble, drifting towards her from the chair in the corner. He'd been watching her soothe Trixie back to sleep for the past half an hour, keeping out of range of her daughter's grabby hands after the initial hug he'd received, but sticking around when it became clear that his presence was helping laying Trixie's fears to rest.

_("I had that dream again," Trixie whispered to her mother, one hand holding a stuffed toy and the other clinging to Chloe's shirt. "The one where--" Where both she and Lucifer were killed by Malcolm.)_

"She's getting better," Chloe replied, thinking about how Trixie wouldn't let her out of her sight the first few days -- getting her daughter to school had been a nightmare -- and how she'd demanded Chloe contact Lucifer to make sure he was okay. Chloe had, on the thinnest of excuses. "It doesn't happen every night, anymore."

He pursed his lips, but didn't say anything else. 

Chloe looked at her hand, where she was carding her fingers through her daughter's hair, and sighed quietly. Now what was she supposed to do? Trixie's interruption had given her a little time to process what she'd seen in Lucifer's eyes. He had feelings for her. Undeniably. She knew what she'd seen. Had felt an answering tug in her own heart. Emotions she'd been trying to ignore because she was still _married_. Developing feelings for someone else would have been the literal nail in the coffin for her and Dan's marriage.

_But so was every bullshit line Dan fed you._

And if she were honest with herself, she'd been feeling ambivalent about getting back together even before he'd come clean, before the text message. Hell, even when it looked like they might be able to fix things. 

She'd always had the feeling as if he weren't being honest with her or as if he'd been holding himself back for some reason. In retrospect -- _("I shot Malcolm.")_ \-- it made sense, of course.

And if it had been only that, she might have been able to forgive Dan. He couldn't exactly have told her what he'd done without putting her in the impossible situation of having to keep this secret for him, and she even understood why he'd been steering her away from uncovering it on her own.

But it hadn't just been that. He'd called her judgment into question on other, unrelated cases, making her doubt her skills and her instincts, undermining her confidence.

More than that, he'd known that Malcolm was dirty way before Palmetto. He hadn't told anyone about it, not even her. He'd likely had a very good reason. 

Only that reason probably was that he wasn't squeaky clean either. She didn't know for sure, though. He might just have… mistrusted her. 

_Like that's any better._

No matter how she looked at it, there was something seriously broken, and if she were being absolutely and completely honest, she shouldn't have agreed to that scene with Lucifer if she'd been entirely down with getting her marriage back on track.

No, developing feelings for someone else was the proverbial nail and even if she hadn't wanted to acknowledge what her heart had been trying to tell her, she'd ended up swinging the hammer that drove the nail into the wood.

Really, Dan suggesting that they'd get a divorce was something of a relief because if he hadn't she would have had to. And yet, stupidly, it still hurt.

"Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, Detective?"

She blinked and realized with some embarrassment that she'd almost forgotten Lucifer's presence. He was still sitting in the chair, in the same position he'd been in earlier and looking at her inquisitively. 

Chloe thought about it. Was there anything else she wanted to know?

 _How about whether he even wants to act on his feelings._ He might be trying to ignore them just as much as she'd been trying to ignore her own.

She tried making her lips shape the words, but couldn't. What if he said no? What if he pretended he didn't know what she was talking about?

He was still looking at her, frown deepening the longer she remained silent.

Perhaps if she asked if he wanted to have another scene? He could say no.

But maybe he'd say no because he didn't want to sub anymore?

Actually… had he even wanted to the first time? Or had he only said yes because he believed she wouldn't agree to a date? She'd been turning him down every time he brought up sex, after all. 

Fuck, what if that really had been the reason for him to agree to letting her top him?

What if she'd been misinterpreting his signals? 

No. He did like her taking charge, had wanted her to when he'd come to her house after his mother dropped the bombshell about why his father had sent him to hell. She was sure of that at least.

Enjoying something and wanting it were two different things, though.

"Detective?" He was standing next to her, hand hovering over her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed him move. "Are you well?"

A date. That was it. She should ask him out on a date, so he'd know she was… that she was open to a relationship with him. If he wanted. And he could… decide if he wanted to sub for her again.

"Do you want to meet on Friday?" she blurted.

He froze, staring at her as if she'd suddenly sprouted horns.

 _Oh g-- hell._ Did he not want to? Had she just messed up again?

She opened her mouth to come up with an excuse, something to make that hot wash of humiliation go away, but before she could, his expression changed and… she'd never seen him smile so wide.

"Yes! I absolutely do!" he all but shouted. Next to her, Trixie made a noise, and Chloe quickly put a finger to her mouth, shushing him.

He sent her a sheepish smile. "Mine or yours?" he whispered. "No wait, mine. We can be as loud as we want to be."

"No--"

"No sex, I know, but I do have a whacking amount of toys." He wriggled his eyebrows.

She held up a hand. "No. I meant that we… don't need to do anything you don't want to do. It can just be a date." 

His face fell.

Wait, he was _disappointed_?

"Or it can be more," she quickly added. "It's up to you."

He bent down, lips close to her ear, and whispered, "Haven't I been well-behaved enough tonight to earn a reward?"

Only if she neglected to consider the first five minutes after he stalked into her home, she thought. But after that, yes. _Ignore negative behaviours and reinforce positive behaviour by acknowledgement and reward_ had been the advice of one of the books on parenting she'd bought. It was good advice in general.

"Yeah," she whispered back, heart fluttering. "You've been good."

\--

"Not that I don't love spending time with the Detective," Lucifer said, "but she seemed unsure where before she wasn't."

Linda wasn't surprised. However, she also wasn't surprised that Lucifer _was_ surprised at that. He was excellent when it came to predicting what someone desired --oh so, so excellent in all bedroom related things, _god_ \-- but exhibited extensive deficits in theory of mind otherwise.

She licked her lips and tried to push down the wave of lust that was threatening to crush her. This was why it was inadvisable to have sex with patients -- aside from the violation of trust, of course. This hunger for intimacy that crept over her with terrifying frequency, long after she had broken things off, as if her flesh would start to consume itself if she didn't at least _touch_ him. ( _"I'm like walking heroin. It never ends well."_ ) 

She should have listened to him.

Linda crossed her legs and folded her hands, focused on the small, low table which was not enough of an actual barrier between them. She could feel Lucifer's gaze burning her. He always seemed to know when she thought about him, about what they'd done on this very table, in fact.

_Concentrate on the patient. You're here to help him, not fantasize about how good his mouth felt on you._

She cleared her throat. "Have you considered that your behavior that night may have given her the idea that _you_ were unsure about her topping you?"

His brow furrowed. "That," he said after a moment, "is a possibility."

Holy moly, she had _not_ expected that. It usually took a lot longer for him to acknowledge even the slightest chance that he was partly responsible for anything. She quickly schooled her face back into professional detachment. It was time to delve into his motivations.

"You said earlier that she understood why you came to her the way you did. Did you end up talking any more about why it is so hard for you to let someone else be in control?"

He shook his head. Well, it wasn't Chloe's job to talk him through his issues. It was hers.

"How did you feel when Detective Decker spanked you?"

"Haven't we talked about this already?" Tone defensive, Linda noted, body language even more so. 

"You avoided talking about this, in every session."

He glared at her. "I don't see how this is relevant."

"You don't see how your feelings about Detective Decker topping you are relevant in a conversation where you asked me why she seemed hesitant to top you?"

He worked his jaw. "I came to you because I wanted to know why she was suddenly angry at me." He blew out a breath, then bared his teeth at her. "And yet, here I stand, poor fool, once more. No wiser than I was before."

She let herself be deflected for the moment. "What happened right before she got angry?"

"Detective Douche talked to her."

Detective Espinoza? Lucifer hadn't mentioned him before. "When was this?" she asked, trying to get a sense of the timeline.

"Just this morning. We were at the precinct, and Maze had just sent me confirmation that she'd won our little bet, so everything was going swimmingly, and then out of the blue, the Detective--"

"Wait," Linda interrupted him, a suspicion growing in her mind. "What bet?"

"Well, Detective has been very stressed the last couple of days, and I thought I could help her let off some steam." He paused. "Before she let it out on my bottom."

And what a fine specimen it was. _Focus, Linda._

"So, I tried to help find a distraction for her, because you said that distractions are a way to avert--

"No," Linda interrupted, feeling a headache coming on. "Again, I didn't--"

"And as I told you, you didn't need to because I can figure it out."

She needed to do more dhyana. Or any form of meditation really. 

Probably a few weeks' worth of it.

"In any case, I asked Maze to take her out drinking."

The girls' night out. Oh dear god. "Asked to take her out or made a bet?" she inquired, just to be sure. She eyed the file. Maybe she should amend 'attempt at self-sabotage' to 'attempts'.  
_Does it make a difference?_

Or it was one of those times that he simply did not understand that what he'd done was manipulative. It seemed to run in the family if his brother was anything to go by.

A result of his mother's treatment of him, of her children in general?

_You're using speculation about a patient's background to avoid dealing with your own emotional response again, Linda._

She had to stay focused on the patient. It was the professional thing to do. 

It was, but she was also making excuses for herself.

 _Don't project. Don't project._

"Perhaps Chl- Detective Decker is feeling manipulated?"

Oh dang, there she went: projecting. But Chloe probably was feeling manipulated. Linda certainly was-- would. In her stead, but she should have lead Lucifer to the conclusion instead of presenting it to him.

He was looking at her in confusion. "It was for her benefit."

"Well, I believe your brother also thought he was acting in your interests when he pretended to be a therapist."

He heaved an annoyed sigh. "It's not the same thing. He wanted me back in Hell."

"And he pretended to be a friend to me. Was this not manipulative?"

"I didn't pretend to be her friend. I--" He paused. "Asked Maze to take her out. _Maze_ pretended to be her friend. Not me."

And there he was back to shifting the blame onto everyone but himself.

"Would Maze have done that without you instigating the bet?"

He looked at her, incredulously. "Of course not. She doesn't even like the Detective."

Even worse. 

"You once told me that Maze, as a demon, was an extension of your will."

"Well, yes. But she has become quite willful as of late."

"Did she not do what you wanted her to this time?"

Lucifer opened his mouth, then closed it. He pursed his lips. Linda waited patiently.

"Fine," her most vexing -- and still sexiest -- patient began, "I _may_ have played a miniscule--" he raised his thumb and forefinger, almost pressing them together -- "part in this."

And now to guide him to his motivation. Self-sabotage was still an option, but she had the distinct feeling that there was something else behind it.

"Can you think of why you might have done something like that? And I don't mean, finding a diversion for her. I mean, doing it in _this_ way."

He raised his eyebrows. "No?"

A different approach then. "Okay," she said. "Moving on then. You said in one of our prior sessions that giving up control to someone else makes you uncomfortable. And that you were ambiguous towards what happened with Detective Decker."

"And that's taken care of, as I've just informed you." He frowned at her. "Are you going senile? I don't think you're old enough for that yet."

"What about the other sides of your relationship?" she asked, ignoring the insult and casting a surreptitious glance at her watch. As expected, it not only showed that her yoga session was already in full swing, but that this was quickly entering the top five of longest therapy sessions she'd ever held.

"What other sides?" he asked.

She pushed the thought aside. It would just make her antsy and rushing during therapy never did any good.

"Your work, for one," she prodded.

"What about it?" Genuine confusion from him, this time. He wasn't being difficult on purpose.  
But still, it was lying pulling teeth. "Who is calling the shots there?"

"Well," he said, "she is. Mostly."

"And when you're simply together? No work, no scene, just the two of you?"

"Neither of us," he said slowly, then stilled. "You think I was trying to take control of… that."

Careful now. "Were you?" she asked.

His lip curled. "Not on purpose," he muttered, then scowled. "Do you think I'm 'self-sabotaging' again?" he asked, making air quotes. "That I angered her on purpose to avoid another scene with her?" His voice was mocking, but he'd brought it up, which was a good indicator that there was a kernel of truth to it.

"Lucifer," Linda began once more, enunciating clearly and carefully. "Imagine, for a moment, what may happen this evening, and then tell me: Are you okay with Detective Decker topping you again?" 

"You are really fixated on this, doctor," he grumbled, then sighed. "Fine." He leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. Her office became so quiet that she began to notice heavy footsteps outside in the hall, moving away from--

Dr. Canaan's office.

Amenadiel's office.

What was he still doing here?

Lucifer's voice jerked her out of her contemplations.

"The detective brings forth a side of me that is very alien to me. As if she doesn't just make me mortal, but also… human."

Metaphors again. This one came up a lot, however. Human, as in someone capable of feeling emotions, specifically those usually considered weak or exploitable.

Reflecting the quality and tone of his own utterance back at him, she kept her voice low, intimate. "And that scares you."

He huffed but didn't contradict her.

"Do you think she would abuse that?" Linda asked.

His head jerked up. "What?" 

"The fact that you are 'mortal' around her," she elaborated.

Lucifer shook his head. "No. No, she wouldn't. She's… good." Pretty much her own impression as well, but Lucifer had worked with Chloe Decker far longer than Linda had been in contact with the woman.

"And the fact that she made you 'human'. Would she abuse that?"

His answer came slower this time, but he didn't sound doubtful. "No."

In other words, this had nothing to do with Chloe and everything with the persona he had built to keep himself from being hurt again after whatever had happened with his parents. "So, what is it that you fear?"

He kept silent for a while. "The Detective is good," he finally ventured, then paused again. "She was like you. She didn't believe me when I told her who I was. She does now, but…"

Linda felt her eyebrows climb to her hairline. She quickly thought back to what her patient had told her about his evening and yes, he had said something about Chloe reassuring him, but… Linda hadn't thought that the down to earth detective actually bought into it.

Maybe he'd misunderstood?

"I don't think she really understands," Lucifer continued. He was clenching his hands at his sides. "And even if she does, how long until she is swayed by millennia of propaganda?"

Darn it. Linda pressed her lips together. "Going by my own impressions of the detective, she doesn't strike me as someone easily swayed. You've told me, repeatedly, about how no one will partner with her because she went against the grain on a case where another officer was shot down. She has faced a lot of negative pushback and remained standing by what she believed."

"Are you telling me to have _faith_ in her, doctor?"

"I think you can answer that yourself," she said.

He looked at her, then away, staring at the window, though she doubted that he actually saw anything. Linda glanced at her watch again. Pointless to go back to her apartment now before her evening appointment. What with LA traffic being what it was, she'd have maybe ten minutes before she'd need to leave again. 

"So, what do I do now?" he asked after a while, turning back to her. "This hasn't really helped me figure out what to do to make her… forgive me for that small faux pas."

"Well," Linda said, "what do you usually do when you want someone to forgive you for making a mistake?"

"I don't make mistakes, usually."

God give her strength. 

"Okay," she said, "what do _other_ people do when they make mistakes?"

He made a face. "You think I should apologize."

"I think you should apologize if _you_ think you should," she said. "It's only meaningful and real if _you_ think it's necessary."

He let out an explosive and put-upon sigh. "Right then," he pulled out his car keys and stood. "Until next time."

Linda said her own farewell, leaning back in her chair as he left. This had been difficult and exhausting, for both of them, and she really hoped that he took something from it. She eyed his file for a moment. She'd need to update it, then maybe have a quick bite and relax for a bit. Then her 5 o'clock.

After that, she'd try to track down Maze. They needed to have a talk.

**Author's Note:**

> Next up: Uriel throws a wrench -- or a skateboard -- into Lucifer's and Chloe's plans for the evening, Maze shows her demon side, Lucifer is guilt- and grief-ridden, and Chloe deals with the consequences. In other words, nobody is happy and everything hurts (including Lucifer's backside).


End file.
